Six Six Oh Shit.

Up until I picked up the paper this evening, I had completely forgotten the date. *sigh* Now I understand. I had perhaps the worst day of my life today. I blame Satan.

The badness actually started last night, but I didn’t know it yet.
I had decided that since only one out of four forecasts for the next three days called for even a 20% chance of rain, it would be wise to cut down a second field of hay. Halfway through, my foot slipped off the clutch and KRRRPACK! the PTO spun the mower drive shaft in two. Took that in stride. I’ve broken my share of farm equipment and this could have happened to anyone. Called a friend with welding skills and called it a night.

The sixth day of the sixth month of the sixth year started off auspiciously. Sunny. Warm. But then I disassembled the PTO shaft and realized that welding it would be nigh impossible. I called my weldy friend to tell him to not come. Drove the shaft over to my local farm implement salvage yard to find a replacement. Under their advice, I cut my shaft in half to try to mate it to the one we had found. That didn’t work. So they sent me to find this Amish welder. All Amish live in BFE. The directions included finding a town called Nunda. It’s a mere eleven miles from my house yet I’ve never heard of it. That’s because Nunda consists of the following: an Amish horse farm, an intersection, and an Amish school (any Amish school you may be forgiven for mistaking for a dilapidated shed). After somehow missing the city limits I obtained new directions from a friendly young woman into whose van I had just driven my car. Her van was fine. My car was one half point (on the rusty’s uncle’s scale of junk car) away from becoming a beater Honda. Her split bumper grin hauls her across that line. It was my fault. I have excuses, but they are excuses. She drove away. My car didn’t even think about starting. As soon as I pop the hood to see just how screwed up she is a dirty pickup with two farm rednecks pulls up and asks, “car trouble?” After ten minutes and one pinched-in beer bottle cap I was on my way. I must admit, them rednecks have them some smarts. The girl with van’s directions were even worse. When I finally do find the Amish welder all he can do is grin helplessly and shrug. He didn’t have the collar I would need. Back to the salvage yard. The guy helping me had left to ted his hay. The owner told me that I was stupid to cut my shaft in half and showed me how I could have fixed it if’n I hadn’t. By now it’s getting late. I gave up on having a mower anytime soon and headed home.

Haley (sister, home from college, we’ll get to her later) had been waiting for an hour for me to come home to set my tractor and tedder up so she could ted while I plant corn. It’s been a while since she’s been shown how to drive a tractor. I set her up and sent her off with the warning, “Don’t hit anything.” She thought I was kidding and drove it straight KKKTHUNKKKK into a tree. I hadn’t even left the field. I stormed over and she says that she should probably learn to drive a tractor before being expected to do things on one. She’s probably right. I give her an hour to drive the tractor around.


And I go to plant my corn. The planter is all fixed. I’m proud of my handiwork, ready to get something accomplished. Drove it the half-mile back to the field. Noticed that the fuel gauge says I’m almost out. And then the chain slips off the drive. So I put it back. And then it slips off again. So I put it back. And then I drive the tractor and planter back to the fuel tank. I forgot the key to the diesel tank so I just chisel the lock off. Fuck it. I put the pump in the tank and walk down to get some water. I takes about 6-7 minutes for a tractor tank to fill by gravity. When I walk back three minutes later there is about $10 worth of diesel fuel spilling off the tractor. The gauge has busted. This is wonderful. I drove back to the field. The chain falls off. Again. Again. I drove back to the farm, fuming. I severely reinforced the piece that kept slipping and pile a bunch of tools on the tractor. As I walked into the shop to grind some rust off a bolt I think to myself, how could this day possibly get worse? Ten minutes later I heard a Thud and the grinder dies. I wandered outside to see if I could see the Thud. I could not.

My mom flags me down as I once again drive back to the field. Asks if I heard the explosion. Wha?? She was going on, something about blue smoke and the power going off and Haley walks up and says the electric line in the cow pasture fell into the swamp. The pole? No, just one strand of one line. Fell off the pole and went boom. Sure enough, my creek and the pasture the calves are supposed to be going to now are fully powered.Not my problem. Corn is my problem. Again I drive back to my field. The thoroughly reinforced piece lasted about ten minutes. I dismantled the gearing and rearranged the pieces. The chain only comes off one more time. My three hour job lasted seven. I will have nightmares of chains no longer moving.
When I got in to take my shower, my mom tells me that they changed the forecast to a 60% chance of rain tomorrow. So much for the hay.

For those of you who didn’t read the whole thing:

Broke my mower.
My idea to weld it doesn’t work.
Guy’s idea to cut it doesn’t work.
But now I’ve got to fix that.
Look for an Amishman who might help.
Get lost.
Crash my car.
Fix it with beer.
Find Amishman.
He’s no help.
Give up.
Show sister how to ted.
She runs the tedder into a tree.
I try to plant corn.
Repeatedly fix the same damn chain.
Pour fuel all over the ground.
Powerline falls down.
The hay will be wet.

As bad as my day was, it was nothing compared with Chucks day. He had his last testicle removed this afternoon. For him it, the music truly died today.